History

FATIMA, Portugal — On the 19th anniversary of the attempt to assassinate him, Pope John Paul II listened as his top aide announced the pope's decision to reveal the so-called ''third secret of Fatima.''

ROME —After the Vatican said the third secret of Fatima foretold the 1981 assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II, the Turkish gunman in that attack proclaimed himself an ''unwitting instrument'' in a divine plan.

It is 1917, and the three young visionaries of Fatima – brother and sister...

What were the apparitions seen in Fatima?

In the years 1916 and 1917, through the tutelage in of an angel and the Blessed Mother, two young children were led to holiness in just a few short years. That tutoring began in the spring of 1916 with three visitations of the Guardian Angel of Portugal, apparitions which served as preparation for the visits the following year of the Mother of God.

What was the message of Fatima?

By following this message their spiritual lives were elevated to the heights of sanctity, to which the beatification of Jacinta and Francisco testifies, and the hope and possibility of the conversion of the world from its ruinous course was offered to mankind.